A, Commemoration of All Saints - 1 John 3:1-3 "It is Finished"

1 John 3:1–3 (ESV) See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him.  Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.  And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.

“It is finish!” That is the cry of Jesus on the cross!  It is the joyful confession of those who have gone before us and are now worshipping around the throne of God outside of time!  It is finished!  What is finished?

When something is finished, it implies that at one time it began, it endured, and ended.  When something is finished it also implies something new has begun.

Not so much today, but in past times, there was an institution known as a “finishing school”.  It was a place where well to do families sent their daughters to become ladies.  Grooming and deportment of young girls prepared them to hold themselves appropriately within the social circles they were expected to mix.

One can imagine there would be an opportunity for comedy to occur in seeking to finish a rough diamond of a girl into a prim and proper lady.  Plays and movies like “My Fair Lady, Nanny McPhee, Bridget Jones’s Diary, The Sound of Music, and Pretty Woman, all are stories about such “rough diamonds” being polished with all the drama and comedy one would expect with the transition of a person from one lifestyle to another.

With much drama and comedy, God seeks to finish us as his children.  In fact, the creation in which we live, the bodies in which we breathe, and the society in which we seek to survive, is God’s finishing school.

Like the movies our lives don’t always follow a simple, rags to riches script!  There are many setbacks and deviations in our stories.  Some are God directed, some are from our own misdirection, and then some come about from the deception of others.

The movie, My Fair Lady, is one such movie!  Actress, Audrey Hepburn, plays a poor Cockney flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, who becomes the centre of a wager by Professor Henry Higgins, that he could make her “well to do” and pass her off as a duchess at an embassy ball.

Most known for the phrase made popular by the movie, “the rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain!” Eliza practises these words to polish her speech!  And there is comedy when she relapses back to her Cockney ways amongst the dignitary at Ascott racecourse, as she inappropriately calls out, “Come-on Dover, move your bloomin’ a_ _ _ (hind quarters)!”   Eliza proves not to be completely finished, as Higgins had hoped her to be!

This movie comes from a play called Pygmalion.  One can understand, looking at the name, why they changed the name to My Fair Lady.  Similar to the story of Pinocchio, Pygmalion in Greek mythology is where a sculptor falls in love with the female ivory sculpture he has finished, in rejection of the young female prostitutes around him.

We are in God’s finishing school!  He seeks to put to death the deeds of our old sinful nature.  This is an all of “this life” project!  In fact, this life is not really life, rather it is the prelude to the life that God originally intended for us and gives us after the resurrection.

In reality this life is not life, but death!  Where the world puts their trust in this life with the hopeless reality of death to come, those who believe and trust Jesus Christ, exist in this finishing school, having the old self killed off, and finished, waiting patiently in hope of the life to come.  This is life with Jesus Christ, the Almighty Father, the Holy Spirit, the angels, archangels, and the whole company of heaven.

St John sees the whole company of heaven in his revelation as one of the elders tells John just who the company is, clothed in white robes…

 “These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.  Therefore they are before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple; and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence.  They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat.  For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.” (Revelation 7:14–17 ESV)

Those who have gone before us, who are in Christ, spur us on!  They urge you on, in the knowledge that they are with Jesus by no effort of their own, but by the great love of our Father in heaven!  They have finished and have been finished in Jesus Christ alone!

When were they finished?  They were finished in baptism, they were finished when Jesus cried out from the cross, “It is finished!”, bowed his head and died.  Their finishing became an unhidden reality in Jesus’ resurrection, in their resurrection, in the resurrection when this life bound by time is finished!

Yet, here we are, still in this existence we call “life”!  But it is a penultimate or second last life!  It is the night before the sun rises on the new eternal day!

It might appear that we are not quite finished!  Like Eliza we fall back into the old ways of our old Adam!  We become sculptors of ourselves, taking the tools out of God’s hands, only to fall in love with the self, or despair of what we cannot create!  What becomes apparent is we cannot finish ourselves!  Or we exist knowing our finish is a sham, trying to fool others, but only fooling the foolish self within!

But despite not being finished in this world, we, like those who have finished their earthly time, are finished too!  How can that be when it seems God has not finished finishing us for eternity?

God has given us the finishing requirement for eternity, and life with him, in our baptism!  When Jesus cried out, “It is finished!”, on the cross, “and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit” (John 19:30), he gave up his spirit for you, and me!

Jesus was the perfect sculpture of humanity, incarnate, created, in Mary.  Sent in love by God the Father, who loves you so much, he sent his only beloved Son, so that “right now” we are God’s children, God’s beloved children, even though we only see it through faith in God’s word of promise.

Hear again the promise, “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him.  Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.  And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.”  (1 John 3:1–3 ESV)

God is no Pygmalion!  He did not keep his Son for himself but sent his beloved Son to conquer death and finish death, for you, his beloved.  Today we remember those who have conquered death in their baptismal death and have now victoriously been raised from the second death.  Let your remembrance of these perfected saints in Christ, spur you on in this earthly finishing school, and heavenly hope in eternal life after resurrection!

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,  looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.  Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted.  In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.”  (Hebrews 12:1–4 ESV)

But if you are required to shed you blood, praise God!  He who has been finishing you through the blessedness of repentance and forgiveness of sin is about to welcome you into his eternal presence!

Blessed are the finished, blessed are those being finished, and blessed are those who will be finished, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven, they are the children of God.  Amen.